A Professional Knows Their Value by Joe Patti

Seth Godin offers a pretty good definition of amateur, professional and hack in a recent post. While I haven't fully considered all the implications of his definition, I feel like it makes t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:03am on July 16, 2020☆⚑

Love-Hate Relationship With Curtain Speeches by Joe Patti

Troublemaker that Drew McManus is, he suggested that as people return to live performances post-Covid, arts organizations should re-think the hallowed curtain speech. He argues that patrons …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:36pm on July 14, 2020☆⚑

Not So Strange, But Does Require Effort by Joe Patti

Non-Profit Quarterly made a post in May that just came across my social media feed today about a weekly Zoom call 200+ arts organizations in NYC are having in order to share information duri…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:12pm on July 13, 2020☆⚑

Yeah, I Have Weird Feelings, Too by Joe Patti

Hat tip to the National Endowment for the Arts for linking to this video of an 11 year old taking The Bob Ross Challenge " basically trying to keep up and replicate Bob Ross' painting instru…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:12pm on July 8, 2020☆⚑

Culture Track Report Says The Same People Won't Be Returning by Joe Patti

You may have seen the news today that the results of the Culture Track Covid-19 report were publicly released today. While some of the data about audience willingness to return to arts and c…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:06am on July 8, 2020☆⚑

Delay May Appear Wise, But Is The Outcome The Same? by Joe Patti

Interesting short piece on the FastCompany website that points out the current uncertainty about the future created the the Covid-19 pandemic makes deferring on a decision seem the wise opti…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:36pm on July 6, 2020☆⚑

The Phantom Wouldn't Have To Hide In The Sewers If He Lived During Covid-19 Pandemic by Joe Patti

There is a piece on ArtsHacker I recently published dealing with a lot of the legal questions arts and cultural venues face when trying to make re-opening plans. You may be aware that people…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:48pm on July 2, 2020☆⚑

No Subscription Model Should Last Forever by Joe Patti

I was listening to an episode of How I Built This where Guy Raz interviews ClassPass founder Payal Kadakia. At first I was just drawn to listen because Kadakia presented a familiar story of …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:24am on July 1, 2020☆⚑

Innovation Results From Hard Work And Funding by Joe Patti

In the Washington Post, Jon Gertner reviews a book about innovation by Matt Ridley.  One aspect of the book Gertner emphasizes is Ridley's view that innovation is 90% perspiration and 10%…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 6:06am on June 30, 2020☆⚑

It's A Good Time To Broaden Board Composition Too by Joe Patti

Tyler Green's tweet today about art museums acting like corporations rather than charities got me to look at the full series of tweets on the subject.  He is angered by the fact that inst…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 4:12am on June 25, 2020☆⚑

Psychology of Re-Opening by Joe Patti

Artsjournal.com linked to a Washington Post story about all the psychological considerations some movie theater operators are factoring into re-opening their spaces for screenings. To paraph…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 3:48am on June 24, 2020☆⚑

Customer Desires: Always Complicated by Joe Patti

The news JC Penney is closing a number of their stores and liquidating the inventory reminded me of a post I made eight years ago about the company's efforts to deal more fairly with custome…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:18pm on June 22, 2020☆⚑

Making Time For Your Creativity Can Be The Hardest Part by Joe Patti

While people still haven't returned to the daily routines they may have had before Covid-19 brought a halt to so much of our lives, it might be worth encouraging people to continue cultivati…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:32pm on June 20, 2020☆⚑

You Don't Know You Are In Water by Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post today that addresses the current climate of Black Lives Matter, policing, statues, etc without directly naming any of these things.  (A week ago he mentioned he gen…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:32pm on June 20, 2020☆⚑

Putting Some O' That Theory Into Practice by Joe Patti

I arrived in my office last Friday to find a heck of a lot more emails in my Inbox than I am used to. It turned out the evening before the governor had announced a change of guidelines that …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:03pm on June 16, 2020☆⚑

How Do Arts Administrator Practice To Get Better? by Joe Patti

Sometimes a good headline is all it takes. When I saw a link to a New Yorker piece about "Bassoonfluencers," I knew I had to at least take a look. It turned out to be an article about a woma…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:54am on June 11, 2020☆⚑

Teamwork? We Got Tons by Joe Patti

I read stories celebrating the fact that Covid-19 is finally making businesses recognize the benefits of telecommuting, confident that there will be this great revolution that will see peopl…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:24pm on June 9, 2020☆⚑

Do We Need Hysterical Strength To Bring About Required Change? by Joe Patti

It appears Indiana University's Center for Cultural Affairs was having some sort of virtual convening around the topic of New. Not Normal: Artists, the Creative Sector, and Innovation after …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:06am on June 9, 2020☆⚑

Many Stages Of Covid Coping by Joe Patti

I don't know about everyone else, but not having a slate of performances on my schedule has kept me just as occupied as actually having events. While I am definitely grateful to still have a…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:06am on June 4, 2020☆⚑

Your Zoom Meeting Is Really Just An Early Performance Experience by Joe Patti

At the end of last month, Nina Simon did the lead presentation for Opera America's virtual conference. (Or perhaps it was just the lead presentation for the topic of "Creating Real Belonging…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:42am on June 3, 2020☆⚑

Guides For Reopening Planning by Joe Patti

Last week I had a post on Arts Hacker featuring the Event Safety Alliance's (ESA)  Reopening Guide for live event venues. You may have already seen the guide being passed around by a lot …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 1:32am on June 2, 2020☆⚑

Keep Up Your Long Distance Relationship With Audiences by Joe Patti

Thanks to funding from a mysterious third party, today my state presenter consortium was able to participate in a webinar lead by Collen Dilenschneider and her colleagues at IMPACTS where th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:24pm on May 27, 2020☆⚑

Dance Got Them Through Tough Times Before by Joe Patti

There was a piece on Vox today that I jumped on with interest because the title seemed to imply it was about a family run dance school applying for the Paycheck Protection Program.  I sho…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:03pm on May 26, 2020☆⚑

At Least You Can Put Your Feet Up On The Seat In Front Of You by Joe Patti

There has been a lot of conversation among my peers about how to revamp our venue seating charts to comply with social distancing. Some people were seating in every other row with 3-4 seats …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 2:54am on May 21, 2020☆⚑

Data Driven In Word, Not Deed by Joe Patti

Interesting article on Harvard Business Review site titled Is Your Business Masquerading as Data-Driven? Now you probably feel that when are stumbling blind through an environment everyone s…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:24pm on May 19, 2020☆⚑